Daily Didactic
Our day began in the curiously land locked Grand Island, NE. We were heading roughly toward Kansas City, Missouri, where Theresa has identified a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to see the Thomas Hart Benton collection. We were also heading roughly toward Springfield, Missouri, where Brian (not realizing how far it was from Kansas City) had our new cell phone provider send a replacement phone. Finally, we were also heading roughly toward Iantha, Missouri, where Brian's family left for Oregon around the turn of the century. With all of this roughness, we were faced with identifying an efficient path through the hundreds of roads in Kansas that are all organized in a grid. This means our best route had to be some selection of ninety degree angles, zig-zagging across Kansas to Missouri. It seemed one big ninety degree angle would be the easiest to navigate and we headed directly down Highway 77 to El Dorado, and then east on 54 to Fort Scott, intending to head south another 30 miles from there and stay at Prairie State Park.

The obvious penalty for avoiding interstates is a cost in speed, slowing down through each little town. For the most part, the towns were very well maintained, orderly and pretty to look at. We took some pictures in Marysville as examples. If you live Anchorage, it is a lot like stepping back in time. Beyond the little towns, it was almost exclusively a day of pastures and cows. Unfortunately, the cost in speed lead us to finally reach our state park fairly late, only to discover it is a park with no campground. Never occurred to us there could be such a thing. We continued south from Lamar about 45 minutes to the KOA in Joplin, arriving late and tired.